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Small Business Support

I want to take a few minutes to talk about small businesses today. As someone who started a shop on Etsy, Greyed Out, a little over a year ago, I want to say that supporting local or person-owned business is important. When I say “person-owned”, I mean a business that has a proprietor you can reach out to. The local butcher shop run by the same family for 15 years, for example, or the store that sells handmade pottery and is owned by the lady with all the cats. I know that everyone shops at a big store; you almost can’t avoid places like Target, Wal-mart, or Home Depot. You probably won’t find a locally-owned shop that produces toilet paper.

When you shop at a store owned by a corporation, the money you spend often doesn’t stay in the community. It goes to support that corporation, and therefore, the corporation’s interests. I think that buying local is important, and supporting local businesses means supporting your community. It keeps things from getting completely nameless and anonymous.

My wife and I both bought Christmas gifts on Etsy this year, instead of shopping at the local mall. As an Etsy seller myself, I like helping other shop owners by supporting their business. I’m always happy to talk to customers or potential customers, and to answer questions about what I do. for your next birthday gift or holiday, why not head over to Etsy and see if you can find something special that matches your needs?

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Excellent points! Very little of the money you spend in a ‘big box’ store stays in the community & much of it doesn’t even stay in the country. Goods production for those stores is outsourced to other countries (to create those low prices), costing us jobs, which means we have less money to spend, so we often choose to shop in those ‘big box’ stores, whose prices are deceptively low & quality is often questionable. It’s a big vicious circle. By shopping in places like Etsy, you help to end that circle & support a handmade seller, whose goods are generally a better value, made with care & handmade love. I hope that many take your advice & shop handmade, for their next holiday or birthday, even most everyday needs: soap, laundry detergent, cleaning supplies, even seeds can all be found on Etsy 🙂

Exactly! I wish I had been as elegant as you were in your comment. Your points are exactly what I wanted to bring across. 🙂 A little searching will bring up lots of options for small businesses that can cater to almost any need. My wife also buys her soap on Etsy, and we’ve been happy with what we’ve found so far. Like I mentioned in my post, it’s vital to support small business. That Wal-mart in your small town might have slightly cheaper groceries, but if enough people shop there, they’ll put the locally owned grocer(who’s been a staple there since the 60’s) out of business, and that town will lose a small part of its heritage and history.
It’s also important to shop local farmer’s markets, to show that it’s not necessary to support Big Agriculture; support your local farmers and growers instead, and see what naturally raised beef or pork taste like. I feel that these issues are something that a lot of people don’t think about much anymore. Even in a big city, it’s possible to shop local. I live in Atlanta, and we still shop at the farmer’s market(when it’s open from spring through late fall) as much as we can.